DETROIT -- Never before has the NCAA put up mileage banners in the arena, detailing the distance from the campus to the court. They may not have realized it until it was too late, but the banners are in green and white -- Michigan State's colors. You can't miss the signage to the right and left of the giant scoreboards: Michigan State 91mi; North Carolina 701 mi; Connecticut 746 mi; Villanova 527 mi. "I wanted to thank Tom Izzo for inviting me to this home game," Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said Friday afternoon prior to the Huskies' open practice. "We don't get 70,000 tickets, we get the same as everybody else," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. "People may be scalping them outside and more people bought them early that thought one of the Michigan teams may be here. But I don't think it will be a tremendous (home game). Looking at UConn, it won't matter because of how well they've played on the road. It doesn't have to be a major factor, just a minor factor." The Spartans will have more fans. That's a given. But the spaciousness of the dome and how the seats go out and not up, shouldn't make this a difficult game for the Huskies. The echoed sounds of the arena may not make it seem that loud. This is Izzo's fifth Final Four, Calhoun's third. Izzo won one title in 2000, Calhoun won the championship in both previous visits to the Final Four in 1999 and 2004, so he's on a five-year increment. The pressure was on the Huskies as a top seed to reach Detroit. There was maybe even more heat on the Spartans because of their potential to host. "This was the hardest," Izzo said of reaching the Final Four among the five he has reached. "Through the whole season we tried not to talk about it or put pressure on the players but there was. You saw it (Friday with boisterous crowd). It was a special moment that few Final Fours see." Earlier Friday, Izzo was at the Detroit Athletic Club accepting a "good guy" award from the United States Basketball Writers Association. The USBWA was also honoring the 1979 Michigan State championship team and the packed crowd of nearly 300 started spontaneously screaming "Go Green!" Even Kansas coach Bill Self, receiving the Hank Iba coach of the year award, and Oklahoma's Blake Griffin, named the Oscar Robertson player of the year, got the crowd going with "Go Green!" chants. Izzo spoke fondly of getting to Detroit in these depressed times in the auto industry and helping lift up -- if only for a week -- the spirits of the city. That's pressure. The people are counting on the Spartans to do something special. To do that, they'll have to play their best game of the season against the Huskies, especially on the boards. They know it. UConn knows it. "How we beat Michigan State is to keep them on the outside and make them jump shooters," Calhoun said. "We've got to keep them off the glass and run. We want to run, score 70-80 points. We're not that dissimilar. We're both physical. It will come down to a battle of which team can out-will the other team." The Spartans aren't afraid to run, either, but must do something to contain UConn guard A.J. Price. "He gets to the basket and the paint more often," Izzo said. "You've got to rebound against them and if you don't then it's a dunkathon." The job to harass Price falls on Travis Walton. Izzo loves using the term check. It's a good hockey word. To ensure the Spartans keep the Huskies off the boards or even moving forward to the basket, Walton will need to "check" Price. "We have to put a body on people," Izzo said. "We do have similar styles." Calhoun likened the Spartans to any other team in the rough-and-tumble Big East. He mentioned Pitt, which beat Connecticut twice this season. Karma? The Spartans don't have DeJuan Blair. They do have Goran Suton, Raymar Morgan, Delvon Roe and a rotation of bigs (Marquise Gray, Draymond Green and Idong Ibok)that can "check" Hasheem Thabeet, Jeff Adrien and Stanley Robinson. With plenty of fouls to work with, the issue may come down to second shots, and how the guards, notably Walton, Kalin Lucas, Chris Allen and Durrell Summers, handle Price, Craig Austrie and Kemba Walker. So far no one has been able to shut them down in the NCAAs. Suton said the Spartans have to keep Thabeet away from the basket, keeping him out as much as possible. Teams have tried that in the past to no avail. Pitt was successful going right at Thabeet. The Spartans don't have the strength of Blair, but do have the depth to possibly absorb that contact. "I think you're looking somewhat at mirrors," Calhoun said of the two teams. "I know Tommy has said they like us to run, Hasheem to run. We want to run. We also want to use our inside power. We think between Jeff and Hasheem, they shoot 60-something percent between them, they get 23 rebounds, both are double-double guys. We're going to try to get the ball inside early as much as we possibly can." When the practice was over Friday at the dome, Izzo made sure he thanked the crowd. He made the players do the same. He told the players to soak in the moment in Detroit. "Hopefully they did that," Izzo said. "We really appreciated the people there. It was incredible, it was awesome." We'll see if it's as magnetic for the men in green and white on Saturday, too.